Zoo Station (24 page)

THE ROAD ACROSS THE NORTHERN
heathlands was mostly empty, the rain persistent and occasionally heavy. He drove west at a steady fifty kilometers an hour, half-hypnotized by the steady slap of the windshield wiper as his eyes struggled to pierce the gloom ahead. Darkness had fallen by the time he left Lubeck, and on the last stretch across southern Holstein a stream of trucks did their best to blind him with their headlights. The dimly lit suburbs of eastern Hamburg came as a blessed relief.

He had already booked himself a room with bath at the Kronprinz Hotel on Kirchenallee. This was one of the Hamburg establishments favored by journalists on an expense account. It was expensive, but not that expensivethe journalists concerned could always produce proof that other hotels were more so. The receptionist confirmed what he already expected, that he was a day ahead of the crowd. With the launch set for lunchtime Tuesday, most of the press would be arriving late on Monday.

After examining his room and eating dinner in the hotel restaurant he went out. The Kronprinz was just across from the main station, which lay at the eastern end of the old town. Russell walked through the station and down Monckebergstrasse toward the looming tower of the Rathaus, turning right before he reached it, and headed for the Alsterbassin, the large square of water which lay at the citys heart. He had visited Hamburg many times over the last fifteen years, and walking the mile-long, tree-lined perimeter of the Alsterbassin had become almost a ritual.

Despite the damp cold, many others were doing the same. On summer days the water was usually busy with rowing, sailing, and steamboats, but on this winter evening the seagulls had it to themselves. Russell stopped for a beer at a cafe on one of the quays, and thought about Effi. She was wonderful with children, but he couldnt remember her ever saying she wanted them. Did he want another one, with her? Despite the fact that the world was about to collapse around them, he rather thought he did. Far across the water a seagull squawked in derision.

He slept well, ate a large breakfast, and drove across the city to St. Pauli, the suburb between Hamburg and Altona which housed a high proportion of the citys seafaring population. His British agent had particularly liked the idea of including sailors among his Ordinary Germans, and this was an obvious place to find them. Interviewing men past active service seemed like a good way of deflecting any suspicion that he was collecting intelligence rather than human interest news, and his first port of call was one of several homes for retired seamen close to the waterfront.

Over the next couple of hours he talked to several delightful pensioners, all eager to share the sources of alcohol concealed on their persons. They had all fought in the war: one, a rare survivor from the Battle of the Falklands; two others, participants in the Battle of Jutland. Both of the latter offered broad hints that theyd taken part in the High Seas Mutiny of 1918, but they clearly hadnt suffered for it, either then or under the Nazis. Their retirement home seemed comfortable, efficient, and friendly.

All the residents he talked to admired the new ships, but none were impressed by the current standards of gunnery. Not, they admitted, that this mattered that much. Ships like the new
Bismarck
looked goodand were goodbut the money and labor would be better spent on U-Boats. That, unfortunately, was where future naval wars would be won or lost.

Russell had less success with working sailors. Trawling the waterfront bars he found some amiable seamen, but rather more who treated his questions with suspicion verging on hostility. Some were clearly supporters of the regime. One young officer, pacified by a brief perusal of Sturmbannfuhrer Kleists letter, was particularly optimistic about Germanys naval prospects: He saw the
Bismarck
, in particular, as symbolic of a burgeoning renaissance. In five years time, he promised, well have the British hiding in their harbors. Others, Russell guessed, would once have been open opponents of the regime Hamburg, after all, had been a KPD stronghold, and a key center of the Cominterns maritime organization. As far as these men were concerned he was, at best, a nadve English journalist, at worst, an agent provocateur.

That afternoon Russell spent a few marks on the circular tour of Hamburg harbor, an hour and a half of channels, shipyards, quays, and towering cranes in dizzying profusion. Colored bunting was going up everywhere, and the Blohm and Voss slipway, which housed the future
Bismarck
, was a ferocious hive of activity as last-minute preparations were made for the launching ceremony. The ship itself was disappointing. Still lacking a superstructure, it looked more like a gigantic canoe than the future of naval warfare. The overall impression Russell carried back to the hotel, however, was of power and energy, of a nation with a long and lengthening reach.

He ate dinner at a small restaurant on the Jungfernstieg which hed been to beforethe oysters were as good as he rememberedand made his way back across town to the Klosterburg, the beer restaurant near his hotel where journalists usually gathered. Hal Manning and Jack Slaney were sitting at the bar, staring across the room at a particularly boisterous table of SA men. One man, beer slopping from a raised glass, was outlining what hed do to Marlene Dietrich if she ever dared set foot in Germany again. His proposal made up in violence what it lacked in imagination.

Russell hoisted himself onto the vacant stool next to Slaneys and bought a round of drinks.

Shes making a film with Jimmy Stewart at the moment, Slaney said. And her characters called Frenchie. I guess that shows which side shes on. He carried on staring at the SA table, whisky chaser poised in his hand. We should think up a new collective noun for these peopleyou know, like a gaggle of geese. A crassness of stormtroopers. No, thats much too kind. He threw his head back and tipped in the chaser.

A void, Manning suggested.

Too intellectual.

A deposit, Russell offered.

Mmm, not bad. A passing, perhaps. He reached for his beer. If only they would, he added sourly.

AT 11:00 THE NEXT MORNING,
two buses organized by the Ministry of Propaganda arrived at the forecourt of the Reichshof, just up the road from the Kronprinz, to collect the assembled foreign press corps. Well be hanging around for hours, Slaney complained, as their bus headed south toward a bridge across the Norder Elbe, but he had reckoned without the traffic. There was only one road through the docks to the Blohm and Voss shipyard, and forward movement was soon reduced to a crawl.

Adolf wont like sitting in a jam, Russell said.

Hes coming by yacht, Manning told him. The
Grille
. A little journalistic detail for you.

Thanks, Dad.

They reached Slipway 9 at quarter past 12:00, and were dragooned, rather like schoolboys, into an enclosed area behind and slightly to the right of the ships towering bow. From here a flight of steps led up to a platform around ten meters square, and from that a smaller flight of steps to the actual launching platform, right up against the bow.

It wasnt Hitler weather, but at least it was dry, with a few desultory streaks of blue amid the gray. Several thousand people were present, lining the sides of the slipway and the area behind the platforms. Some shipyard workers were leaning over the ships rail, others perched precariously on the vast scaffolding of girders which rose above the ship. The larger platform was full of city and state officials, naval brass and Party hacks.

The first of several loud booms silenced the crowd.

Naval salutes, Slaney murmured. Unless theyre firing on Hitlers yacht.

No such luck, Russell said, indicating the man in question, who had just appeared at the bottom of the steps leading to the first platform. Bismarcks elderly granddaughter was climbing the steps ahead of him, and Hitler was visibly chafing at the delay, casting frequent glances at her progress as he talked to the portly Goering.

Once the Fuhrer, Dorothea von Bismarck, and the three service chiefs were all gathered on the higher platform, the former gave, by his own standards, a remarkably brief speech extolling the virtues of Germanys last Navyscuttled to spite the British in 1919and the Iron Chancellor himself, a true knight without fear or reproach. Bismarcks granddaughter then named the shipher querulous voice barely audible above the raucous shouts of the seagullsand broke the traditional bottle of champagne on the bow.

There was a sound of blocks being knocked away, and then . . . nothing. The ship failed to move. Hitler continued staring at the bow, like a cat facing a door which refused to open. One of the service chiefs looked around, as if he were asking what do we do now? A couple of seagulls hovered above the upper platform, as if intent on mischief.

If this goes on much longer, Slaney said, watching them, the Limeysll be running a book on who gets crapped on first.

There were more knocking noises from below, but still no sign of movement. Russell looked at his watchtwo minutes and counting. Hitler was still staring rigidly ahead, but what else could he do? It was hardly the place for a major tantrum.

One of the service chiefs leaned over to say something, and stiffened as if hed been slapped. And then a cheer burst forth from those lining the slipwayat last the ship was inching forward. The figures on the platform visibly relaxed, and as the stern slid into the river, Hitler, turning slightly to one side, smiled and brought a clenched fist sharply down on the railing.

They must have sent Goering down to give it a push, Slaney said. Anyway, he added, the good news is that it wont be ready for sea until 1941.

The Americans train wasnt until nine that evening, and he jumped at the offer of a lift back to Berlin in the car. There was little conversationSlaney slept for most of the journey, despite snorting himself awake on several occasionsand Russell was left to brood on his visit to Sachsenhausen the following day. At least hed have no trouble getting there. Come to think of it, that was what made car ownership in Germany specialthe concentration camps became so accessible.

After dropping Slaney off in the city center he drove up Neue Konigstrasse to see if the Wiesners had any news, or any last-minute instructions for his visit. There was none of the former, but Frau Wiesner had written a short letter to her husband.

They wont allow. . . . Russell started to say, but then relented. Ill try, he promised.

Please read it, she said, and if they take it then you can tell him whats in it.

Tell Daddy we love him, Ruth said, her head suddenly appearing around the door to the other room. The voice was brittle, the smile almost unbearable.

I will.

He drove back down Neue Konigstrasse, and stopped at the Alexanderplatz station to call Effi. The phone just rang, so he drove home to Neuenburgerstrasse. Frau Heideggers skat evening was in boisterous swing, but shed pinned a message for him beside the phone: Herr Russell! Your fiancee is working late tonight and early tomorrow morning. She finishes work at six tomorrow evening!

Russell went upstairs and ran a bath. The water was almost scalding, the pain of immersion almost pleasurable.

WEDNESDAY WAS A NICE
day for any drive but this one. Berlin looked its best under a pale sun: The Spree sparkled, the windows glittered, the brightly colored trams shone in the graystone streets. While walkers huddled against the brisk cold wind, mouths and ears swathed in wool, the Hanomag proved remarkably snug for a ten-year-old car. As he drove up Brunnenstrasse toward Gesundbrunnen he thanked his lucky stars for the Zembski cousins. More than a thousand kilometers in twelve days, and no sign of a problem.

As he drove over the Ringbahn bridge he could see the Hertha flag flying from the Plumpe grandstand. This was the way he and Effi had come on the previous Friday, but the feeling on that day had been one of leaving Hitlers world behind. Today he was journeying into its heart, or the space where a heart might have been.

Sachsenhausen was only an hours drive from Berlin, a reasonable commute for the Gestapo interrogators who had previously plied their trade in the modern dungeons of Columbia Haus. According to Slaney, the new camp was a lot bigger, but neither he nor any other member of the foreign press corps had ever visited it. They had been shown around a sanitized Dachau in the early days, but that was it.

Ten kilometers short of his destination, Russell pulled into a small town garage for gas and used the stop to read Eva Wiesners letter to her husband. It was simple, touching, to the point. Heartbreaking.

Back on the Stralsund road, a neat sign announced the turnoff to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and Re-Educational Facility. Two or three kilometers of newly laid road led through a flat land of pastures and small woods to the gates of the camp. Parallel wire fences ran off to both left and right, one of which was clearly electrified. The gates themselves were flanked by a concrete watchtower and gatehouse.

Russell pulled up beside the latter as a man in
Totenkopfverbande
uniform emerged with palm raised and a submachine gun cradled in the other arm. Russell wound down the window and handed over his documents. The guard read through them twice, said wait here, and walked back inside the gatehouse. Russell heard him talking, presumably on the telephone, and a few moments later he reemerged with another guard. Get out, he said.

Russell obliged.

Raise your arms.

He did as he was told. As one guard checked his clothes and body for weapons, the other went over the car.

What is this? the first guard asked, taking the letter from Russells coat pocket.

Its letter for the man Ive come to see. From his wife.

Not permitted, the guard said, without apparent emotion. He crumpled the letter in his fist.

Russell opened his mouth to protest but thought better of it.

The cars clean, the other guard reported.

Turn left inside the gate, and report to the
Kommandantura
, the first guard said. Its the second building on the left. He handed back the documents and gestured to the guard who had now appeared inside the gates to open them. Russell thanked him with a smilewhich was not returnedand drove carefully through the now-opened gates, conscious that they would soon be closing behind him. Turning left, he could see, in a wide space some distance ahead, several hundred prisoners standing in formation. Most had bare arms and heads, and must have been freezing in the cold wind. Two
Totenkopfverbande
officers were ambling along the front rank, shouting something indecipherable. One had a muzzled Alsatian on a lead.